School Leadership

Akua Akyea, Associate Dean for Career Development at Cornell Law School leads a re-imagined office focused on supporting students and alumni in all practice areas. As Assistant Dean for Public Service at the Law School, she counseled students and alumni on both domestic and international public interest opportunities and on ways to incorporate pro-bono in a corporate practice. Before coming to Cornell Law School, she was Assistant dean of Career Services at the University of Iowa College of Law. Prior to that, she was director of Public Interest at Yale Law School for five years. And before that, she was at Columbia Law School’s Social Justice Initiatives — where she directed several public interest summer programs.

Akua is a graduate of the University of Iowa Law School, where she served on the Journal of Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems and was a member of the Legal Clinic working on asylum petitions and §1983 cases. She has presented on international public interest careers, working with public interest alumni, and supporting students’ social justice goals at the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) and Equal Justice Works conferences.

Akua has also worked on issues of cross-cultural communication and diversity, is a trained mediator, and served as a counselor for at-risk high school students through the Upward Bound Project. She has traveled and lived in several countries in Europe, East and West Africa, and North America.

Education

B.A., University of Iowa, 1993
J.D., University of Iowa College of Law, 1997

Contact Information

Cornell Law School
128E Hughes Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853-4901
Phone: (607) 255-3597
Email: aoa28@cornell.edu

Contact Information

Cornell Law School
Myron Taylor Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853-4901
Phone: (607) 254-8541
Email: aja293@cornell.edu

Shane Cooper JD ‘03 is the Senior Associate Dean for Admissions, Financial Aid and Student Services. In this role, he leads JD recruitment efforts and efforts to retain and support the current student body. He also provides strategic direction to the Dean of Students staff on all aspects of counseling and student case management, serves as the primary point of contact for the faculty Administrative Committee, and is the officer of record for character and fitness certification to bar authorities. He previously served as Associate Dean for Administration and Enrollment at the University of New Hampshire School of Law, overseeing admissions, enrollment management, and administrative activities.

Prior to working in higher education, Shane served in the Navy for 26 years as a submarine officer and Navy judge advocate. He qualified as a submarine warfare and nuclear engineer officer aboard the USS Connecticut (SSN 22) where he served from 1996 to 2000. He then entered the Navy’s Law Education Program and graduated from Cornell Law School in 2003. He also earned a Master of Laws degree from Columbia Law School in 2012. As a judge advocate, he served in a variety of roles including as a prosecutor, Special Assistant to the United States Attorney, Rule of Law Advisor in Iraq, and in-house chief counsel to several naval commanders including the Commander of United States Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. In his final active-duty assignment, he served as the lead for the Navy’s legal education and training program responsible for the training of all Coast Guard, Navy, and Marine Corps commanders, judge advocates and paralegals concerning the administration of military justice and law.

Shane currently serves in a variety of volunteer leadership roles. He is a member of the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC) Pipeline Initiatives Working Group, a participant in the LSAC Plus Scholars Program, President and Founding Member of Veterans Legal Justice New Hampshire, and President of the Naval Justice School Foundation.

Education

B.A., College of the Holy Cross, 1995
J.D., Cornell Law School, 2003
LL.M., Columbia Law School, 2012

Contact Information

Cornell Law School
107 Myron Taylor Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853-4901
Phone: (607) 255-8179
Email: sdc22@cornell.edu

Michael J. Cummings is the Assistant Dean of Admissions at Cornell Law School. He has twenty-two years of admissions and enrollment management experience, having spent his entire career in higher education. Working from Admissions Counselor up to Assistant Dean he has experience in undergraduate, graduate, international, professional, and law admissions, financial aid, and enrollment. A first-generation student from Otisco, NY, Michael has a BA in Journalism from St. Bonaventure University, MA in Education Policy from The Catholic University of America, and an Executive Masters in Leadership from Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.

Contact Information

Cornell Law School
109 Myron Taylor Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853-4901
Phone: (607) 255-7150
Email: mjc396@cornell.edu

Martha Fitzgerald is the Associate Dean for Communications at Cornell Law School. She oversees marketing and communications efforts to help achieve the school’s strategic goals. During her tenure, she has developed a comprehensive communications and brand strategy encompassing all programs and activities at the Law School.

Prior to joining the Law School in 2006, Martha was the Lead Web Designer for Cornell University. Previously, she was Creative and Art Director at the University of California San Francisco and Senior Designer for the Gap, Inc.

She received her B.F.A. in Graphic Design from the College of Art & Design in Dublin, Ireland. In addition, she has training in brand management, leadership, and management from U.C. Berkeley.

Contact Information

Liz Flint is the Director of Human Resources at Cornell Law School. She provides guidance and support on all HR matters for the faculty, staff, and students at the Law School; oversees all recruitment for staff; and partners with the Faculty Appointments Committee on faculty recruitment, reappointment, and tenure. She also works closely with the Dean on the annual American Bar Association (ABA) reporting and analysis, as well as the ABA reaccreditation process.

Liz started her career at Cornell in 2000, as an administrative assistant in the Alumni Affairs & Development Office at the School of Hotel Administration. She then advanced into higher-level administrative assistant roles in the Dean’s Office and Office of External Affairs at the School of Hotel Administration, before moving to Cornell Law School in 2010 to become the Executive Staff Assistant to the Dean. She became the Director of Human Resources in October 2015.

Liz also serves as the Certification Coordinator and Government Affairs Chair foe the Tompkins County chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). She holds a B.S. in Political Science from Northern Arizona University.

Contact Information

Cornell Law School
481 Myron Taylor Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853-4901
Phone: (607) 255-21012
E-mail: liz.flint@cornell.edu

Aimée Houghton is the Associate Dean for Graduate Legal Studies at Cornell Law School. She oversees enrollment and student services for both LL.M. and J.S.D. students. Prior to joining Cornell in August 2014, she led a law school career planning office. She has over eighteen years of experience in law student advisement and law school administration. Aimée is admitted to practice before state courts in both New York and Connecticut. She is a member of the American Bar Association, the New York State Bar Association, and the Connecticut Bar Association, as well as the National Association for Legal Career Professionals (NALP). She served as president of the Connecticut Association of Legal Recruitment Administrators (CALRA) from 2012-2014.

Aimée received both her undergraduate degree in fine arts and art history, and her law degree from The University of Connecticut.

Contact Information

Contact Information

Cornell Law School
126 Hughes Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853-4901
Phone: (607) 253-7511
Email: jah637@cornell.edu

Ofer Leshed joined Cornell Law School in June 2016 as Associate Dean for Administration and Finance. He serves as a senior level member of the administration, directing financial, accounting, budgeting, human resources, information technologies and facilities operations at the Law School.

Previously, Ofer served for three years as the Director of Finance and Budget at the College of Engineering at Cornell, concurrently serving as Interim Associate Dean for Administration for almost a year. Prior to that, he worked for eight years at Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine in a variety of roles, including as Director of Administration and Finance for the Cornell University Hospital for Animals. Before coming to Cornell, Ofer served in various lead finance positions in the Israeli defense/hi-tech industry.

Ofer holds a B.A. in Economics and Business Administration and an M.B.A. from Haifa University in Israel.

Contact Information

See Beth Lyon’s faculty profile.

See Kim Nayyer’s faculty profile.

See Jens Ohlin’s faculty profile.

Kevin Sackett brings over a decade of experience in higher education fundraising and alumni engagement to his role as Associate Dean for Alumni Affairs and Development at Cornell Law School. Before joining Cornell, Kevin served as the Senior Director of Advancement at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), where he led a team responsible for advancing priorities and funding initiatives for the Kate Gleason College of Engineering, the College of Engineering Technology, and the Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences. Kevin’s background also includes significant experience in gift planning. He began his development career at Cornell, where he played a key role in raising funds for Big Red Athletics. He holds a B.S. degree from SUNY Cortland and an M.S. in Finance from the Saunders College of Business at RIT.

Contact Information

Fouad Saleet joined Cornell Law School in April 2020 as the new Assistant Dean for External Education and Jack G. Clarke Executive Director of International and Comparative Legal Studies. Prior to joining the Law School, he served as the Director of Special Programs and Professional Studies for Cornell’s School of Continuing Education.

Fouad has a broad range of experience amassed by working close to 20 years in higher education, including at top tier institutions such as Dartmouth College and Colgate University. At Dartmouth, he worked in student services within residential life, and assisted faculty house advisors working with Academic Affinity Living Learning Communities. At Colgate, he served as the Assistant Dean for Campus Life, overseeing several departments responsible for the co-curricular experiences of all students on campus, and also spent time as an Administrative Dean, working with students to maximize their Colgate experience.

Prior to coming to Cornell, Fouad worked at Pearson Education in a variety of functions, including developing online curriculum and course work for several schools across the Northeast. He also helped several institutions launch their online degrees.

Contact Information

See Jed Stiglitz’s faculty profile.

See Chantal Thomas’s faculty profile.

See Kristen Underhill’s faculty profile.

See Michelle Whelan’s faculty profile.